Impacts on Water Surface Level of the Geum River with the Diversion Tunnel Operation for Low Flow Augmentation of the Boryong Dam

금강-보령댐 도수터널 운영에 따른 금강 본류 내 수위 영향 분석 연구

Recently severe drought caused the water shortage around the western parts of Chungcheongnamdo province, South Korea. A Diversion tunnel from the Geum river to the Boryong dam, which is the water supply dam for these areas has been proposed to solve this problem. This study examined hydraulic impacts on the Geum river associated with the diversion plan assuming the severe drought condition of 2015 would persist for the simulation period of 2016. The hydraulic simulation model was verified using hydrologic and hydraulic data including hourly discharges of the Geum river and its 8 tributaries, fluctuation of tidal level at the mouth of the river, withdrawals and return flows and operation records of the Geum river barrage since Feb. 1, 2015 through May 31, 2015. For the upstream boundary condition of the Geum river predicted inflow series using the nonlinear regression equation for 2015 discharge data was used. In order to estimate the effects of uncertainty in inflow prediction to the results total four inflow series consisting of upper limit flow, expected flow, lower limit flow and instream flow were used to examine hydraulic impacts of the diversion plan. The simulation showed that in cases of upper limit and expected flows there would be no problem in taking water from the Geum river mouth with a minimum water surface level of EL(+) 1.44 m. Meanwhile, the simulation also showed that in cases of lower limit flow and instream flow there would be some problems not only in taking water for water supply from the mouth of the Geum river but also operating the diversion facility itself with minimum water surface levels of EL(+) 0.94, 0.72, 0.43, and 0.14 m for the lower limit flow without/with diversion and the instream flow without/with diversion, respectively.